St. James's Hospital - History

History

Dublin Corporation paid £300 in 1603 for a foundation stone for a poorhouse on the site now occupied by the hospital.

The war between William III and James II intervened and work was abandoned until 1703, when Mary, Duchess of Ormonde, wife of James Butler, 2nd Duke of Ormonde laid the stone.

Several distinguished citizens served on the board of the hospital when it opened in 1727, including Arthur Guinness and Dean Swift. The hospital was closed in the early years of the 19th century and the buildings were used as a workhouse and known as the South Dublin Union. The workhouse infirmary, which originally catered for sick inmates only began to take on an increasingly active role as an infirmary for the sick poor. Some extremely competent physicians worked here at that period including Robert Mayne, a radiological expert.

In 1916, the South Dublin Union was occupied by rebel forces and during the fighting a member of the nursing staff was accidentally killed. The hospital continued to develop as a municipal hospital following Irish independence and the name was changed to St Kevin's Hospital.

Later in the 20th century plans were made to amalgamate some of the voluntary hospitals in Dublin to build a new St. Kevin's which became known as St. James's in 1971.

Several small Dublin hospitals were closed or changed their functions in the 1980s including Mercer's Hospital, Sir Patrick Dun's, Dr Steevens' Hospital and the Royal City of Dublin Hospital, Baggot Street. Most of the services provided by these hospitals were incorporated into the new St. James's.

The 'new St James Hospital' opened in the early 1990's over stages. Prior to this the hospital was located in a variety of buildings on the site each called by a specific building name (hospital 1-7). Some units such as Hospital 5 and hospital 2 remained functional after the transfer to the new hospital and they continue to provide in patient care. Hospital 5 used to contain the midwifery department which closed in the 1980s and many older female patients admitted to the medical wards of Hospital 5 recounted how they had delivered their children in the same building many years previously. Other buildings such as hospital 1 changed function moving from providing inpatient care (hospital 1: oncology/cardiology/medical) to providing administration or day care services. Hospital 3 (a nice building which still had bullet holes in its walls from the Easter Rising) was sadly knocked down in the early 1990s (for parking). The school of nursing/Nurses Home building became administrations offices with the main teaching room becoming the Board Room. The current main hospital canteen was a former surgical ward.

The hospital played a key role in the great influenza outbreak of 1918 with many of those who died in the outbreak reported to be buried in a mass grave close to the South Circular Road Entrance. An elderly patient who was admitted to the hospital in the early 1990s who had worked as a young teenager in the hospital recounted terrible scenes as the hospital struggled to cope with the patient load during the outbreak.

In the late 1980s early 1990s the hospital was the first facility in Ireland to provide dedicated services to patients affected by HIV. At this early stage of the outbreak there was often little to offer in terms of treatment and many often very young people some of whom were from the local community died of HIV related infections in the hospital during this time. In recent years most HIV services in the hospital are now provided on an outpatient basis with much more positive treatment options available to patients which is a change from the early stages of the outbreak.